Next, Bank of America did the honest thing and announced a flat $5 per month fee for cardholders to make up for the revenue congress took from them.

Result: Consumer is $5 per month poorer and store owners are marginally richer. Thank you Dick Durban and Congress!

Now comes Chase, Citigroup and others saying they will not charge cardholders a fee, giving consumers a clear choice. Unlike government action, the free marketplace gives consumers more choices, as merchants compete for our dollars.

Thanks to the free market, a customer can now choose to do business with a bank that explicitly charges her the fee, or she can go with the bank that hides if from her.

Now, what I'd really like is a bank that pays decent interest rates to savers. And the fed does control these interest rates, which hit those on fixed incomes particularly hard. For the ailing elderly, this will mean that, once the ailing elderly go to the nursing home and end up on Medicaid (as most do), Medicaid will become unsustainable. First, of course, the CNA's will be getting even lower wages. Already, some 80% of those in nursing homes are on Medicaid -- even if they entered the nursing home with a bundle of cash. and were self-pay for however long that money lasted (Medicare does not pay for longterm care).

Typically, the monthly fee for a nursing home is upwards of $16,000 a year.

Think of your own nest egg: how long will it last if the worst happens and you end up in a nursing home? Typically, it is the ailing elderly in nursing home. But now always! Victims of car accidents also show up, and many of those victims are in their youth.

Now, if interest rates for savers were decent, folks who enter in a nursing home could certainly be self-pay for a longer period of time, thus relieving Medicaid and the taxpayers of the burden for longterm care.

Pardon my diverting a bit from the topic of Silverfiddle's post. But the matters are related.

AOW: No apologies necessary. I share your outrage at what the fed id doing, and they're doing it deliberately.

You, me, savers and people on fixed income are paying a silent tax. Via the Fed's ultra-low interest rates, like rats and termites they are silently eating away at our life savings, our paychecks, our pension checks and our spending power.

See Ducky, this is the road we go down when we build institutions and indulge in the fantasy that they are superior to the free market.

Statist hero Dick Turban sticks his finger in here, and something pops out equally over there. Time wasted, nothing solved.

Your whole question about "want interest rates" is specious and point out the folly of monetarism. A group of educated idiots foolish enough to believe they can drive the market end up driving it into the ground.

Prices, interest rates, runs and slow sales are all market signals that the hubristic men behind the curtain have snuffed.

I see you've bought into the system, lock stock and barrel.

As long as you've got your fancy investment instruments that do good when the rich oligarchs screw the rest of us, right?

Yes, Silverfiddle, I have admitted that I'm sufficiently perverse to want the Randoids to realize they ain't going to be the winners. And they will learn it the hard way every time, unfortunately.

There is no indication they want to form any political movement that is going to confront corporatism. I can't have sympathy for folks who talk seriously about Herman Cain or Rick Perry... or Barrack Obummer for that matter.

You should read this: http://financialedge.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0711/The-Truth-About-Credit-Card-Swipe-Fees.aspx#axzz1cPbiXgdo

When I first moved down to rather sleepy part of Florida, I was looking at different businesses to get into. One of the fist was the card swipe business.

What happened was the first day I was officially living down here, I went out to a local diner for breakfast. I had no cash on me. When it came time to pay the bill, I pulled out my card and guess what? They didn't take it.

I had to run out to an ATM to get the cash to pay the bill.

I asked them why they didn't accept the cards, and they said the fees were basically flat, and they're typical receipts were relatively low.

(Yet another argument for progressive taxation)

Just the same, I decide to look into the card-swipe business... and guess what? It is a regressive, anti-small-business, fee scam.

I declined. I'm not a scumbag.

When the cap was placed last month, merchants were only able to see a few more cents on their transactions. Meanwhile, the banks, who now thanks to conservative scumbags can profiteer from just about every transaction in life, raised their transaction rates for probable twice the profit.

And you guys, you conservatives, who pretend to understand business, cry foul for the fucking banks!

Why Jersey, is the liberal answer to everything 'more government'? You can't afford the one you have.

As I've said before, we owned a small business. We paid a flat fee on debit cards and a percentage on credit. It wasn't excessive and the costs were distributed across our menu. Have the prices risen since then? Undoubtedly.

You think the banks are gouging you? Any idea how much it cost me to pour you a soda or a beer versus what the market rate is? I can tell you this, it's pennies. I sold 7 cents worth of beer for $3.50.

Any idea what a liquor license costs? There are 1410 liquor licenses available in the state of New Mexico where we operated our business. One in Las Cruces went for $600,000, one in Santa Fe went for 450,00. State wide the average was $258,000 and the last one (that I know of) that sold in the town we operated in was over $300,00 back in 2008.

Ask yourself, while the bank may be charging $5 a month for you to use your debit card what is it costing them to operate the network and even better what is it costing them in labor hours and program costs to meet all those government regulations you are so fond of?

Typically, the monthly fee for a nursing home is upwards of $16,000 a year.

Jeez AOW, I had to read that twice. No wonder people get heart attacks. $1300.00 +/month isn't too unreasonable. My SO is an LPN at a managed care facility. There is a lot that goes on behind the scene that the family doesn't see up front. My parents finally put my grandmother in a home after caring for her, at home, for almost 20 years. It opened their eyes.

The Founding Fathers and those who fought in the Continental Army were our original Western Heroes, guided by the thinkers of the Enlightenment and following in the footsteps of great warriors like Jan Sobieski and Charles Martel.